Under this head of INVENTION is placed the disposition of the work,-to put all things in a beautiful order and harmony, that the whole may be of a piece. The compositions of the painter should be conformable to the text of ancient authors, to the customs, and the times. And this is exactly the same in poetry; Homer and Virgil are to be our guides in the epick; Sophocles and Euripides in tragedy in all things we are to imitate the customs and the times of those persons and things which we represent: not to make new rules of the drama, as Lopez de Vega has attempted unsuccessfully to do, but to be content to follow our masters, who understood nature better than we. But if the story which we treat be modern, we are to vary the customs, according to the time and the country where the scene of action lies; for this is still to imitate nature, which is always the same, though in a different dress. As in the composition of a picture the painter is to take care that nothing enter into it, which is not proper or convenient to the subject, so likewise is the poet to reject all incidents which are foreign to his poem, and are naturally no parts of it; they are wens and other excrescences, which belong not to the body, but deform it. No person, no incident, in the piece or in the play, but must be of use to carry on the main design. All things else are like six fingers to the hand, when nature, which is superfluous in nothing, can do her work with five. A painter must reject all trifling ornaments; so must a poet refuse all tedious and unnecessary descriptions. A robe which is too heavy is less an ornament than a burthen. In poetry Horace calls these things-versus ihopes rerum, nugæquæ camore; these are also the lucus et ara Diana, which he mentions in the same ART OF POETRY. But since there must be ornaments both in painting and poetry, if they are not necessary, they must at least be decent; that is, in their due place, and but moderately used. The painter is not to take so much pains about the drapery, as about the face, where the principal resemblance lies; neither is the poet who is working up a passion, to make similes, which will certainly make it languish. My Montezuma dies with a fine one in his mouth;' but it is ambitious, and out of season. When there are more figures in a picture than are necessary, or at least ornamental, our author calls them " figures to be let ;" because the picture has no use of them. So I have seen in some modern plays above twenty actors, when the action has not required half the "Take my last thanks: no longer I repine. "I might have liv'd my own mishaps to mourn, 46 While some would pity me, but more would scorn; "For pity only on fresh objects stays, "But with the tedious sight of woes decays. "Still less and less my boiling spirits flow, 66 And I grow stiff, as cooling metals do.—— "Farewell, Almeria." number. In the principal figures of a picture, the painter is to employ the sinews of his art; for in them consists the principal beauty of his work. Our author saves me the comparison with tragedy; for he says, that herein he is to imitate the tragick poet, who employs his utmost force in those places, wherein consists the height and beauty of the action. Du Fresnoy, whom I follow, makes DESIGN, or DRAWING, the second part of painting; but the rules which he gives concerning the posture of the figures, are almost wholly proper to that art, and admit not any comparison, that I know, with poetry. The posture of a poetick figure is, as I conceive, the description of his heroes in the performance of such or such an action; as of Achilles, just in the act of killing Hector, or of Æneas who has Turnus under him. Both the poet and the painter vary the posture, according to the action or passion which they represent, of the same person : but all must be great and graceful in them. The same Æneas must be drawn a suppliant to Dido, with respect in his gestures, and humility in his eyes; but when he is forced in his own defence to kill Lausus, the poet shews him compassionate, and tempering the severity of his looks with a reluctance to the action which he is going to perform. He has pity on his beauty and his youth, and is loth to destroy such a masterpiece of nature. He considers Lausus rescuing his father at the hazard of his own life, as an image of himself, when he took Anchises on his shoulders, and bore him safe through the rage of the fire, and the opposition of his enemies; and therefore in the posture of a retiring man, who avoids the combat, he stretches out his arm in sign of peace, with his right foot drawn a little back, and his breast bending inward, more like an orator than a soldier ; and seems to dissuade the young man from pulling on his destiny, by attempting more than he was able to perform. Take the passage as I have thus translated it : Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field, The Trojan chief; who held at bay, from far And thus to Lausus, loud with friendly threat'ning Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage in And afterwards: He griev'd, he wept; the sight an image brought Of his own filial love; a sadly pleasing thought. But beside the outlines of the posture, the design of the picture comprehends in the next place the forms of faces, which are to be different; and so in a poem or a play must the several characters of the persons be distinguished from each other. I knew a poet, whom out of respect I will not name, who being too witty himself, could draw nothing but wits in a comedy of his ; even his fools were infected with the disease of their author. They overflowed with smart repartees, and were only distinguished from the intended wits by being called coxcombs, though they deserved not so scandalous a name. Another, who had a great genius for tragedy,' following the fury of his natural temper, made every man and woman too in his plays stark raging mad: there was not a sober person to be had for love or money. All was tempestuous and blustering; heaven and earth were coming together at every word; a mere This description seems at the first view to be intended for Congreve, to whom it is certainly sufficiently applicable, and who had produced his DOUBLE DEALER in the preceding year, and his LOVE FOR LOVE in 1695. But beside that Dryden's high admiration of Congreve, which he had so strongly manifested in the admirable Verses addressed to that poet on the former play, will not admit of such an application, the words " I knew,” clearly denote a dead poet, and consequently will exclude Wycherley also. The person meant therefore, I think, was Sir George Etherege, who died a few years before. In Dryden's Epilogue to that author's MAN OF MODE, he says, "Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ, "Most ladies would mistake him for a wit." 3 The tragick poet here alluded to, was doubtless Nat. Lee. |